Epic and Other Higher Narratives

Steven Shankman’s edited volume explores Eric Auberbach’s Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1946) which is one of the most influential and foundational books in the field of comparative literature. Auerbach wrote Mimesis in Istanbul, just on the Asian side of the famous divide between the European and Asian continents, but his book is focused exclusively on the European side of the Bosphorus. He says nothing of Asia. Our volume asks if Auberbach’s approach to the history of literary style and representation is adaptable to — or suggestive for — a more global understanding of higher narrative, i.e. narrative that achieves the kind of elevation, comprehensiveness, and seriousness of purpose that was traditionally associated with the elevated style in Western antiquity.